


On the Roofs of Paris

by Dream_Wreaver



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Study, F/M, I really had no ideas for this, Just wanted to explore a what if of them talking on the roofs, This is a plotless fic, hope you enjoy it anyways, of sorts, set pre-season 3 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:55:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22625158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dream_Wreaver/pseuds/Dream_Wreaver
Summary: There's a certain sense of freedom that only being imbued with a magical artifact capable of granting super powers and complete anonymity can bring. And certain sights one can only see when given the power to leap buildings in a single bound. But Mayura is not alone on the roofs of Paris this evening.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	On the Roofs of Paris

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so... it's been a while. Sorry. There's been some... personal stuff that's kind of stifled my creativity for the show and ship as well as simply getting involved in other fandoms. I can only have one hyper fixation at a time I guess. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this attempt to get back into writing for these two.

Becoming Mayura had been both a blessing and a curse. Because now she could help Gabriel in a way equal to him, in a way she could have only ever dreamed of before. She had powers, and stamina and she never felt more alive than when she was racing across the rooftops of the Parisian cityscape with the wind in her magically shortened hair, swirling about her legs through the front slit in her coat dress. Leaping from building to building with such grace and agility that Parisians down below never noticed her leaping about when she was in broad daylight, let alone when at dusky twilight like this. The lights of day fading, the lights of night rising. And by night lights, she didn’t mean the stars or the moon -though they were there. She meant the electric lights that illuminated homes and businesses, even the Eiffel Tower itself. Mayura tended to stay away from there at night, considering her teenaged nemeses liked to spend some time unwinding after an evening patrol there. One might wonder why she didn’t take the opportunity to ambush them when their schedule was so painfully obvious. But she’d promised herself that she was only here to help, and that she would only take matters into her own hands if Hawkmoth proved incapable. One might also think the constant string of failures up to the present might have provided enough fodder for doing so, but they would be forgetting those narrow successes, the akumas like puppeteer, dark owl, troublemaker, who had all come so close to victory. So for now, she would be content to let Hawkmoth run the show, only stepping in if he continued to disappoint her.

And then, there was the other reason. She had to live her civilian life. That took precedence, keeping Gabriel’s company running and his income consistent while he tried to get Emilie back for them. And that meant being Nathalie, which meant releasing her transformation. And that, that usually meant a solid day or two where he lungs felt like they were on fire and her energy levels were incredibly low. Of course, Nathalie knew the risks of continuing this course. Mister Agreste, Gabriel himself had been mad at her the first time around. But, just like always, she'd been able to convince him otherwise. As she stared down into the busy city streets Mayura had to wonder at herself. Here she was, wasting her life and killing herself over a man who didn't even love her. Some might have said that sort of thing was pathetic. Those people were idiots.

What did they truly know? They would see it from the outside, that Gabriel was a terrible man and a terrible human being and an even worse father. Someone who used others for his own personal gain. And to be quite honest, they would be right. She couldn't really argue his own actions. But they saw only the surface of those actions. They didn't see how Gabriel had promised to do anything and everything in his power to bring Emilie back. How he had broken that promise when faced with the reality that Adrien could be a casualty to his father's actions. That everything he did, he did for his family, because he loved them. The problem was, was that Gabriel wasn't very good at expressing his feelings with words. It meant it was always so easy to paint him as the bad guy. And the truly worrying thing? She was afraid that was exactly what he was turning out to be. The power to bring back Emilie compared to power for the sake of power. His desire was slowly but surely corrupting him, possibly beyond repair. And that was why Nathalie had wanted to help him. Not just because of her own personal feelings, but because she knew if he continued to fail, Adrien would very much quite possibly lose the only parent he had left.

Mayura stopped along a rooftop, letting a slight evening breeze ruffle her feathers. Good god she was even starting to think in terms of animalia. But it didn’t matter, soon enough this would all be over. The corruption of Chloe Bourgeois would soon be complete, already her trust in Ladybug had been further shaken, though the child herself was too stupid and self centered to realize why that was. Hawkmoth’s original plan had been to keep akumatizing the people close to Chloe, to put Ladybug in a situation where of course Chloe would want to help save her loved ones and then they would capture the miraculous to add to their arsenal. But Mayura had pointed out that not only would doing so perhaps alert Ladybug to their plan in the first place, given enough opportunities like that Ladybug would inevitably give the bee miraculous back to the spoiled princess. Miraculer had been proof enough of that. Nathalie winced remembering her failure. She’d gotten the miraculous only to lose it in her escape, barely managing to shake off Chloe without getting herself revealed.

“Now, what are you doing out here?” she heard a voice ask from behind her. Mayura turned and there he was, Hawkmoth.

“How did you know where to find me?” she asked him, hands wringing themselves around her fan. She knew he didn’t like it when she went out for a jaunt around the city just because. But then, she also knew he knew what the cost of these jaunts was.

“I have been keeping special attention tuned to you,” Hawkmoth answered, “With each passing use, you grow weaker and weaker. You can recover, for now, but if something were to happen to you, I could never forgive myself.”

“You don’t need to,” Mayura told him, “I did this because I promised I would do whatever it takes to help you.”

“I got you too involved from the very beginning,” Hawkmoth shook his head, “That should have been enough. But your plan was too good to pass up,”

“Separating the heroes and taking down their allies should have worked,” Mayura frowned, “At the very least, you should have let me come with you-”

“I couldn’t risk losing you,” Hawkmoth shook his head, “You were the source of my own boosted abilities, not to mention an akuma like that would have been a direct link to my civilian identity. I should have given you an object to place power into that was more difficult to break.”

“Like your miraculous?” Mayura asked. So like her, to always be thinking about how she could have done better.

“No,” Hawkmoth answered, “Nooroo suffers enough as it is, charging him with his own powers might have caused serious damage to him and the miraculous.”

“I suppose it doesn't matter,” Mayura sighed as she glanced away, “From my understanding Chat Noir used his cataclysm. I doubt there's anything that can stand up to that. I should have kept the object safe. I let you get hurt, I let you risk everything because I got overconfident-”

“No,” Hawkmoth told her, “Your plan was perfect. Had Ladybug and Chat Noir not been doing this for so long I doubt they would have triumphed. Besides,” he added, “I continue to let you do this, so I suppose I have as much blame on my shoulders as you do.”

“I told you I wanted to help you!” Mayura insisted, “Until it was over, no matter the cost. This was my choice, my decision. Please, don't blame yourself,”

Hawkmoth sighed, “What are you doing out here? There's no akuma to aide, no chaos to cause with an amok, and we run the risk of being spotted by the heroes of we continue to stay out here.”

“I know that,” Mayura replied, casting her gaze to the side, “I just… I wanted some air.”

“You don't need the miraculous to do that,”

“You believe there's another way one could see the city like this?” Mayura countered, gesturing at the Paris before them. It was strange to see it like this, laid out before them like a set of glittering jewels. All there for the taking. The historical buildings fitted in with the more modern one, the people wandering about worried about their own insignificant lives and completely oblivious to what was happening if they only looked up.

“I didn’t know you liked the city skyline,” he remarked.

Mayura sighed, “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” though she tried her best to keep her emotions controlled, she couldn’t help the slightly bitter note that crept into her tone as she spoke.

He had empathic powers, he knew what people were feeling. One might have thought because of this and her typical close proximity to him her feelings should have been obvious even if she tried to hide them. But for all his amazing accomplishments, acting wasn’t really one of Gabriel’s strong suits. At the very least, not acting like an oblivious idiot. No, that was genuine. She had to imagine it was because of his blind devotion to his wife, to fixing all that had gone wrong. But still, it was hard to rectify the cold, calculating, and cunning villain with the man who couldn’t even figure out someone else would ever fall in love with him.

“But,” she added, turning her gaze back out to the skyline, “I never realized I liked it until I had the power and the freedom to see it.”

“There are a lot of things people don’t realize until put in the proper circumstances to realize it,” Hawkmoth told her, “For instance, that a partner was what I needed to come closer than ever to victory.”

Her eyes flashed to him, unable to stay away. How could he truly say things like that and expect her to remain unaffected? Oh, right, she was the only one suffering like this. And she would do so gladly, if it meant bringing back his and Adrien’s smiles once again.

“You flatter me, sir,” she told him, slipping into her role as assistant without even thinking about it. Or maybe she was, maybe, she did it to remind herself that no matter the freedom of a supervillain’s identity, the her behind the magic, the real her, would never be his equal.

“None of that,” he told her, “Not here, not now.”

“I’m sure all of Paris thinks of Mayura as Hawkmoth’s assistant anyways, so it’s a moot issue,” Mayura responded, “Now if you don’t mind, I should like to enjoy the sights a little longer.”

“You shouldn’t be staying out and about transformed like this,” Hawkmoth told her, “It’s too dangerous; what if you get caught, what if something happens?”

“And what would you suggest as an alternative?” she raised a brow in challenge, “I drop my transformation right now? How do you think I would explain being up on the roofs of Paris this late at night, and this far away from my home or the mansion?”

“You have a point,” Hawkmoth replied, “And I suppose it would seem strange if they saw me carting a civilian around town.”

“I'm a big girl,” Mayura reminded him, “I can handle myse-”

As though to contradict her words, a coughing fit came over her, along with a sudden spell of weakness. She felt her legs give out from under her, and then his hands as they rested on her shoulders. Without a second thought he scooped her up into his arms and headed back home. She'd been using it too long tonight. And with each time she could remain strong, even in the transformation, less and less. Without a second thought, he dropped his own transformation and plucked the brooch from her, forcibly releasing her own.

“Miss Nathalie?” Duusu questioned.

He couldn't hold any at the Kwami who looked at her master with such concern. It wasn't Duusu’s fault she was broken, in more ways than one, and it wasn't her fault that her pain was transferred to her wearers. Gabriel sighed,

“She's been working herself rather hard lately Duusu,” he told her, “I think we should let her get some rest, don't you?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Duusu demurred.

“Why don't you and Nooroo go off and spend some time together,” Gabriel suggested, knowing his kwami would appreciate the small gesture of kindness, “I trust you know there are certain things not to be discussed,”

“Yes Master,” Nooroo nodded, taking Duusu and letting themselves fall behind. The order not to be too far away from his master was still in place, but Gabriel would afford the tiny god some privacy.

Gabriel found a seldom used guest room and laid her down on its bed. Nathalie had stirred a couple of times, but was too weak to really do anything. He was surprised, as it was the first time she'd coughed while transformed. The consequences were growing worse. And he silently resolved not to utilize Mayura unless absolutely necessary from here on in. It wasn't worth the risk. With any luck, Lila Rossi would complete her objective and soon Marinette Dupain-Cheng would be the leader of the strongest Akuma army he'd ever created. Then, it could be over, he could fix his mistakes, all of them. And everything would be alright.

The night sky was shining through the windows in the room. Gabriel looked out at the city around him, focused not on it but on the sky above. If there was a higher deity that looked out for humans, he asked its help and it's forgiveness. He hadn't wanted to be the bad guy, but he'd seen no other way to fulfill his promise. But now… now he was wondering if it was worth the prices he was paying. If it was worth the price that _she_ was paying. Gabriel looked down at Nathalie from his seated position at the edge of the bed, she slumbered on. And suddenly he felt kind of exhausted himself. He reasoned that, they were both above the covers, both in their working clothes, and that Adrien had about sixty other rooms he'd need to check before he would find them here. It was alright, and he lay down with his back to Nathalie, and fell asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought. Thank you so much for reading.


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